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RUSSIAN BLITZ & US GLITCH

By Chris M. Thomas

The ‘Czar’ Vladimir Putin and his puppet president last week called themselves as the guarantor of security in the Caucasus region as Nato and its allies is to the Middle East .The time for an all out assault on Georgia was perfectly planned because the U.S and its allies military machines are dogged in Afghanistan and Iraq, kept in check by Iranian proxies like the one led by Muqtada Al-Sadr and its likes. Israel on the other hand is having a terrible time with proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the West Bank.

NATO and its allies have no real space to maneuver except for the cunning move by the French President Sarkozy and the German chancellor Angela Merkel taking into account the dependence of oil by EU states on Russia to sign a cease fire agreement including a pull out of Russian troop into positions before this undeclared war. So any military move by NATO and its allies are highly unlikely and risky. It is said that it took weeks for the American military satellites to focus on this region of volatility.

This spontaneous calibrated move and assault by more than 2000 tanks,20,000 troops and some airplanes into Georgia

took the veil of President Bush who some years back claimed of seeing the soul of Putin but was rather deceived by his masquerading eyes of his ‘so called phony democracy’.

The burgeoning trade surplus of about a trillion dollar as a result of becoming the world’s second largest crude producer has given fuel to the military hardware of the Russians due to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been slowly equipping Latin American states like Venezuela and Cuba and Middle Eastern states like Iran and Syria and through Iran its proxies and in Africa to rebel governments like Libya and Sudan.

This war was provoked by the Russians who constantly sent its ‘mig’ fighters into Georgian airspace to shoot down its drones and by disrupted artillery fire by the South Ossetians into its territory.

The US top diplomats are said to have told the Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili that the problem of South Ossetia and Abkhazia cannot be solved through military means and that it required patience and wisdom. The Russians were trying to create a problem and re-establish its status as a super-power by destroying the U.S trained and equipped Georgian military and in doing so peeling off the defeat in the cold war at the hands of its old foe- the U.S . Saakashvili’s reliance on U.S words proved his short sightedness. Maybe he considered his help in Iraq of contributing 2000 troops or more and expected the US to respond as a friend in need.

The controversial policy of granting Russian passports to people in the breakaway Soviet Union states like people of South Ossetia have paved the way for the Russian military assault as described by the

President Dmitry Medvedev “I am obliged to protect the lives and dignity of Russian citizens, no matter where they are located”

There are 50,000 Ukrainians who hold Russian passport in the Crimean port of Sevastopol who celebrated the arrival ofRussia’s Black Sea Fleetfrom the Georgian port of Poti. There are also Russian peacekeepers patrolling the separatist Transdniestria region in Moldova which has Russian passport holders who number more than 10,000. The Russian lawmakers are calling for the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia damaging the already fragile peace conditions. The EU and the US supports the Georgian territorial integrity.

The Georgian government is seeking up to $2 billion from USAID to repair and build infrastructures such as communications and hydro-electric dams. The World Bank said on Thursday it is to send a team to assess the economic damage caused by this conflict. The US is also likely to help build its military after the Russian grounded it to stand still. The Russia’s Gen Anatoly Nogovitsyn has made it clear that they intend to control the strategic port of Poti and have created buffer zones around Abkhazia and South Ossetia with 2,600 troops. The zones include sections of the main highway from the capital Tbilisi to the Black Sea as well as Georgia’s main airbase at Senaki.

All this conflicts have benefited the Syrians and the Iranians especially the Syrian President Bashar Al Assad who courted the Russian side by visiting the Black Sea resort soon after this conflict and showed willingness to host Russian Iskander missiles which Moscow claims can evade any missile defense and showed interests for Pantsyr-S1 air defense missile defense system, the BUK-M1 surface-to-air medium range missile system and air crafts. The Russians have sent a delegation to Cuba to establish Russian bases and boost economic relationship and its eyeing many Latin American countries as allies. The Iranians will have more time through Russian veto in the Security Council to move forward with its nuclear program and more leverage in Iraq and Palestine -Israel conflict.

Anyway what do the Persians have to do with Jerusalem? Is it really about the Plight of the Palestinians in the occupied territories or to speed the return of the illusionary mehidi who will conquer the entire world through Jerusalem as a base?

It was foolish for the west to let Russia loose after the collapse of The Soviet Unionby not participating in the democratic institutions and influencing its people. The cocktail of Russia, Iran, Syria, Libya, Cuba, Venezuela and other dubious United Nations members are a mix of poison which can lead to a two polar world dominated by two super powers and in the future lead to a World War. The Russians fail to realize that their economic prosperity is as a result of western investments and re-alignment from the west will lead to its fall which will be more humiliating than the end of the cold-war.

Mr. Putin and his associates were members of KGB and doctored by the mythology of ‘mother Russia’ – a dream about conquering former soviet states like Ukraine, Poland, Georgia and its siblings.

NATO must adhere to the words of its first Secretary General Lord Ismay who famously said that the organizations goal is “to keep the Russians out, the American in and the Germans down”. It has failed to adhere to the principle to keep the Russians out. By now the question of ‘Who’s next?’ Ukraine or Poland or Moldova must be ringing in the corridors of NATO.